I shrugged her elbows off me and skated my chair backward so I could look at her. I could see each pale freckle on her nose. I could probably count them if I tried. I wanted to tell her I didn’t have time to waste on a new mark, not when I had four days to turn around Klein or else leave her and this life we’d built together before the Lady put me down like a dog shot in the street.

“Lou, I should tell you— Is that the same blouse you were wearing yesterday?”

“Hmm?” Lou had moved to the bar cart she’d bought to celebrate my first anniversary with the Lady—the same day I’d paid off twenty large on the debt—and was fixing a cocktail, humming as she did. My mouth watered, not pleasantly, and I narrowed my eyes at her back. Black, linen, sheer—I was almost positive I was right. I heard the chime of the front door—Jackal leaving. Even better. I didn’t want him to overhear what I was about to say.

“Never mind,” I said quickly. “Lou, come here and tell me if—”

Lou turned around, toasting me with a tumbler of tea-colored liquor, capsizing a maraschino cherry. “It’ll be tricky, but Mitch Carrigan, our biggest score ever—”

“Hello?”

Ellen rapped two small fingers on my office door and pushed it open, but she didn’t step inside. Her hair was pulled away from her face with a clip, which was a mistake—it wasn’t that kind of face. A small cluster of acne blossomed on her chin. She was wearing blue jeans and a tight pink sweater with embroidered pom-poms, and she looked younger than legal.

Lou’s mouth dropped open, but she recovered quicker than I did. “Hello,” she said, pulling Ellen in for a kiss on each cheek. “So nice to see you again.” Ellen stammered something back, half dazed. Lou could have that effect on people. It was why I’d had Lou meet Ellen and me for drinks at the St. Leo back at the beginning of the case: she was still the best at making the girls see past the payoff and want to be involved with what we did. Lou could sell anything.

There’s a magic Lou has, a certain kindness in her face. It’s a small miracle, finding a nice face in this city. People respond to it, even when they shouldn’t. Even when she was wearing day-old clothes and no makeup and hadn’t gotten enough sleep because God knew why.

“Ellen, a little birdie told me you’re killing this case. Jo says you’re one of the best we’ve ever had.” Lou smiled, warm and homey, and Ellen smiled back, a little uncertainly, making knots of her fingers and venturing a glance at me as Lou tugged her to my desk.